Broken Soul
by PineappleAnanas
Summary: Sometimes the result of torture can become your greatest weapon. Join Tezra as she exacts revenge on the man who killed her brother. Rated for future chapters, Garrus/OC.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Prologue: Welcome to the Family**

Rain pelted down on the human's back, soaking through the thick coat she had on. She briskly walked to the front door of the Turian house in front of her, the house that she would never return to. The clap of thunder overhead didn't faze the human, but caused her to quicken her pace.

The small whimper from the bundle in the human's arms caused her to look down. She felt great sadness to do this, but there was no other way.

She climbed the short flight of steps up to the front door of the Turian house, looked up at the door, then back down to the bundle in her arms, giving her only daughter one last kiss goodbye. She then gently put the bundle on the dry porch, looked up to the door and rung the chime to let them know that her daughter was there, and then ran away.

There was the sound of footsteps before the door opened. The Turian standing there looked around not finding anything and was about to close the door when there was a small whimper from below him. He looked down to find the human baby tightly wrapped up in blankets.

"Who is it?" came a voice from inside the house.

"It's a human baby." The male answered. There was some rustling and then footsteps as a female came to the door and looked down at the infant.

She knelt down and picked up the bundle, "Oh. You poor little thing, lets take you inside where it's warm."

"Serana what are you doing?" the male protested, a little surprised at what his mate was doing.

"I am bringing this unfortunate infant inside and taking care of it. It's obvious that its parents couldn't take care of it, or worse didn't want it. So," she looked down, taking a close look at the infant, she realised it was female, "she will be staying with us, and if you have a problem Jaxus, your sleeping on the couch."

She walked into the house going down the hall and turning into the small kitchen, gently placing the baby on the counter and slowly unwrapping her from the confines of the blankets. Jaxus walked in, a little nervous of the human, even though she was an infant, it had only been a few years since the end of the Relay 314 Incident, and he was still a little uncomfortable around humans.

"Now you are going to need a name little one." Serana commented, talking to the baby.

"Serana, I am going to stand by you in any decision you make as your mate, but are you sure you want to… adopt this human infant?" Jaxus asked a little cautiously, very aware of his mate's fiery temper.

Serana looked up to Jaxus with understanding in her eyes. "Jax', I understand why you are feeling nervous and uncomfortable, but I cannot sit around and let this poor, innocent baby girl to fend for herself. I am going to take care of her, even if it means adopting her. I know the ramifications of that and I am willing to deal with the consequences. And if, no, _when_ I adopt her, I will love her like I love Ni', it doesn't matter that she is human."

"Well then. What do we call her?" Jaxus asked, feeling better seeing his mate so confident and dedicated to what she planned on doing.

Serana looked down at the baby. Bright forest green eyes looked back at her with a curious glint in them, the small tuft of platinum blond hair on her head catching the light coming from the kitchen light. "Tezra. Her name will be Tezra."

"Welcome to the family then, Tezra." Jaxus proclaimed, walking to the side of his mate and putting his arm around her waist and looking down at Tezra, his new, unique human daughter.

**Well here you go, first chapter. I know its short but I promise the next chapters will be longer. **

**First person who guesses who Ni' is gets… nothing really, unless you want to have a little pride at guessing something, I don't really care.**

**And I would like to thank my close friend Renae-Carrows, who doesn't really know much of the Mass Effect universe but decided to beta this anyway. (She's a Harry Potter junkie)**

**So R&R and I would like to know what you think.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I would like to thank those who took the time to review, I really appreciate the feedback.**

**Again this is going to be a short chapter. Sorry for the long wait but I was originally going to have the chapter longer, going forward another ten years, but I had a case of writers block.**

**Also I like the idea that Turians can cry, so my Turians have tears.**

**Chapter2: Five Years Later**

The little five year old human girl squealed as her older nine year old Turian brother pushed her into the puddle of mud, the recent rains making the surface of Invictus muddy and slick.

Tezra grabbed a handful of mud and threw it at her brother; it hit him in the head with a splash, covering his scaled face in mud. He looked toward his little sister with a glare.

Tezra sat there laughing, oblivious to the ball of mud coming for her face. There was a slapping thud as the mud ball hit her face and she ended up looking like her brother, not two feet away. She ran a hand down her face, wiping the mud off and gave her brother the evilest glare a five year old could muster. She stood up, picking up as much mud as her small hands could in the process, and slowly walked toward her brother.

"Ni'." She said sweetly with a big grin, picking up her pace as she got closer to her laughing brother.

Nihlus stopped laughing when he heard his sister. He looked over at her and saw her 'evil' grin. "Uh-oh." Nihlus gulped, back-pedalling away from Tezra.

Tezra burst into a sprint before Nihlus could get a good grip on the slick ground, and pounced on him. They fell to the ground, Tezra straddling Nihlus' waist, grabbed the collar of his shirt and stuffed the mud she had in her hand down his shirt, laughing all along. Nihlus twisted his body, causing Tezra to fall off him and into the mud. He grabbed a handful of mud about to do the same his sister had done to him when the door to the house opened.

"Nihlus, Tezra. Time to get cleaned up before dinner," their mother called from the door. "You two are such a mess."

Before Nihlus could finish with his mud 'torture' to his sister, Tezra had wriggled out of his grasp and sprinted to the door of the house. Nihlus got up and followed, ever the obedient Turian. They spent the next forty-five minuets getting cleaned up in the bathroom and changed into clean clothes, throwing their muddy clothes into the washing hamper in the corner. They then had dinner and talked about what they had done that day, Nihlus and Tezra ended up arguing about who the winner of the mud fight was, and talked about what Tezra wanted for her upcoming birthday.

"I want an omni-tool, with loads of games and a thing to take cool pictures with and candy, lots and lots of candy!" she squealed in excitement.

Serana and Jaxus put them to bed at nine at night local time, bidding them a good night and to have sweet dreams like any parent would.

As Tezra, Nihlus, Serana and Jaxus slept soundly, a shuttle had landed outside the house. The noise had woken Tezra and Nihlus from their slumber. Tezra sat up in her bed and looked over to Nihlus. "Ni'. Did you hear that?" she whispered over to her brother on the other side of the room.

Nihlus nodded in acknowledgement, "Tez', come over here." Tezra went over to her brother bringing her stuffed Turian toy with her. They sat on Nihlus' bed staring at the window, waiting.

They heard the sound of the front door opening and then light footsteps drifted down the hall. The footsteps stopped outside their door, Tezra and Nihlus held their breath. Suddenly the door burst open, causing Tezra to scream and Nihlus to growl loudly. The intruders shone a bright light in their faces, blinding them momentarily. Nihlus, fuelled by instinct to protect his family, jumped up and attacked the intruders, his small talons ripping at one of the intruder's legs, leaving large gashes in his leg. Further down the hall were the sounds of Serana screaming and Jaxus roaring in fury at unknown people attacking his family.

The person that was attacked by Nihlus kicked Nihlus off, causing him to fly across the room hitting the opposite wall hard enough to make him go unconscious. Tezra, still screaming, was kicking out at the people, trying to get away. "Hurry up and grab her and put her in the damn bag!" one of the men ordered.

As Tezra kicked again another of the men grabbed her leg and pulled her toward him. He grabbed her arms in one hand and picked her up off the ground. Tezra screamed even louder for her mother, so loud that the two men that weren't holding her cringed and put their hands up to their ears. She stopped for a short breath and one of the others put a gag around her mouth. She tried to scream again but the gag stopped her. The man that was holding her bought her over to another man that was holding open a large bag, and put her inside the bag.

When Nihlus came to again he saw the men carrying his sister out of their room in the bag. He tried to get up but it hurt too much, but using all the strength he could muster, he belly crawled toward them, but it wasn't enough. They had already left the house and were in the shuttle before he was finally able to get on his feet and walk to the front door. His mother and father were already outside, his mother screaming up at the shuttle, tears freely flowing down her face and his father growling and pacing around in fury and a small amount of failure for not being able to protect his daughter. Nihlus watched the shuttle fly away; the burning behind his eyes caused him to look down at the stuffed toy in his hands. He dropped his head and let the tears flow silently.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Twenty years later.

Her blood curdling scream was all anyone could hear inside the secret facility. At night, when the experiments were over they could hear her whimpers of pain because of the excruciating test and training she had to go through by force. They tried to make her forget her past, but she would never forget her family. She was about to be six years old when they took her away.

They finally finished with the last electrode when she was on the verge of fainting. She collapsed on the table, twitching from the excess electricity running through her body. She could barely open her strangely violet eyes from fatigue and her snow white hair was soaked with sweat. There was so much sweat that the normally baggy grey shirt and pants were sticking to her torso.

"That is enough for today." One of the scientists said as he put the electrode back on the charger. "Take her back to her cell and give her some new clothes, these are disgusting." The guard next him nodded his head silently and moved toward her. He unstrapped her from the cold metal table and hefted her over his shoulder. He carried her all the way back to her cell, passing many different rooms along the way.

He opened her cell door and dropped her on her bed causing her to scream loudly from the sudden sharp pain. The guard laughed as he walked out and locked the door. She curled up into a ball and thought about the people she was taken away from.

She missed her family. She may have been a human in a Turian family, but they had been with her for as long as she could remember and there was no way she would forget them.

She looked out the small square window of her cell, seeing nothing but the infinite expanse of space, the stars glittering like little jewels in the velvet black. Somewhere out there they were still looking for her and she couldn't do anything to let them know she was alive.

She felt her eyelids get heavier as her exhausted body demanded sleep. She heard loud footsteps coming closer to her cell, rousing her from the sleep she was just about to enter. Looking up at the door she waited for the people to go past. What she didn't expect was for three guards to open her cell and throw a screaming human child into her cell while laughing at the poor kid. The child had a sack over his head preventing him from seeing anything, but it didn't stop his screams and whimpers of pain from escaping.

Tezra slowly sat up, being weary of her aching body, and tried to get a closer look at the kid. He was small and looked to be in a bit of pain, she wouldn't be surprised considering how she was treated when they had taken her. She slowly got out of her bed as the three guards left locking the door. She limped over to the boy and saw that his hands were tied with rope. She knelt down next to the child and slowly reached out to take the rope off his wrists. When she touched his wrist, he jumped and screamed, obviously thinking that she was another guard, and tried to scramble away from her.

"Hey it's okay. I'm not going to hurt you." She quietly reassured her voice a little hoarse from the amount of screaming she had done over the years.

The young boy seemed to settle down a little but kept his distance. He was scared and Tezra didn't want him to freak out, it would only attract the attention of the guards.

"Please, let me untie your hands." She tried to talk with a comforting voice, but she didn't know how to talk to anyone, the only social thing she had done in the last twenty years is try to rip the guards apart and scream from the pain of the experiments.

The boy cautiously turned around so she could reach the ropes and slowly nodded. It seemed that he didn't want to talk, which was fine with Tezra, she understood how the kid felt. Slowly she crawled toward the kid and reached for the ropes. The knot was a simple one so she undid it in a few seconds and stepped back a bit as to not crowd the child.

He quickly whipped his hands in front of him and reached up to the sack over his head. He pulled the sack off and slowly turned around to face Tezra. She gasped and gave him a sympathetic look when she saw he young he looked. He was older than she was when she was taken; he looked to be the same age as Nihlus was twenty years ago. He slowly curled into a ball as he displayed how scared he was.

"Who are you?" he asked quietly his green eyes searching her pale violet ones for answers.

"My name is Tezra." She answered back trying to keep as comforting as possible. "I have been here for the last twenty years. What's your name?"

The boy seemed to calm a little but also had a curious look on his face when she said that she had been here for twenty years.

"My name is Christopher, but you can just call me Chris." He answered quietly. "What do these people want from me?"

She looked at him sadly as she thought about her answer. "Look Chris, I'm not going to lie to you. They probably bought you here to do what they failed to do to me."

"What is that?" he asked hesitantly.

"Are you sure you want to know?" she asked. "It's not something I would want to tell anyone. But if you think you can handle it..."

He shot up on his feet bravely, "Of course I can handle it!" he shouted, "please let me know."

"Alright, your brave kid I'll give you that." She said. "You see my hair and eyes?" he nodded. "Well they weren't always these colours. I used to have blond hair and green eyes. They changed because of the experiments the people here did to me. They want to make you into a shape-shifting super soldier. It worked partially on me, but I am too defiant and I can't change my form into what they wanted." He looked at her with an unbelievable expression.

"Well, can't we escape?" he asked hopefully. His shone with the last remnants of hope he had.

She looked away sadly; she did say she wasn't going to lie to him. "I'm sorry kid. I have tried countless times to escape and every time they catch me before I make it to the escape pods or shuttles."

The hope in his eyes vanished, replaced by nothing that Tezra could describe. "Get some sleep kid. You're going to need it."

**Hey guys sorry for the wait but I was kind of busy with school and home work.**

**Anyway I would like to thank the people who reviewed. They made me get off my lazy ass and start writing, thank you.**

**Also I am thinking about changing the POV to first person. Let me know if you would like that or if you are happy with the way it is. I like to make my readers happy and let me know if you have any ideas for the story I am kind of going off the top of my head at the moment until I get to the part that I actually started writing this for.**

**Love you all and remember a happy writer uploads faster, so keep those reviews coming.**

**Deathadda22**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

A Change of Heart

Tezra was roused from her light sleep when she heard loud footsteps and laughter coming from the corridor outside her cell. Chris was still asleep in the far corner, curled into a ball for warmth. Tezra took her blanket off her bed and draped it over his shoulders to try to give him some form of comfort.

The footsteps and laughter got gradually louder as the men came closer. The noise the men made roused Chris from his sleep and he woke with a start. Tezra looked over to him, "Try to keep quiet Chris. If they are only doing rounds they should just go past."

Chris nodded and held onto the blanket tighter, trying to make himself as small as possible. Tezra sat up taller and stared at the door. Finally the guards made it to their door and they stopped in front of it.

Tezra glared at them through the door. "Where's the kid bitch?" the guard right in front of the door said, trying to intimidate her. Tezra said nothing back but continued to stare at them. There were four of them. They looked to be new recruits with one senior officer there.

The first guard stepped closer to the barred door still trying to intimidate her. "Hey Bobby I would be careful," one of the other guards said, "I heard she tore one of the other guards apart when he was standing real close to her cell."

The guard, Bobby, scoffed like he was some big shot marine. "Like she would try something with you guys here." He said. He was obviously some hothead straight out of training. "Besides that poor bastard was alone."

Tezra glanced over at Chris, the look in her eyes telling him to stay quiet. He minutely nodded his head. She looked back at the guards and slowly stood up and walked toward the door. The guards quickly stepped back and the senior officer stepped to the front of the group. The man was tall about six feet and easily made her look like a little kid, besides the fact that she was twenty six. He had on light armour and because of his helmet she couldn't see his face.

Tezra put her hands on the horizontal bar of the door and looked into each of the guard's eyes until she stared at the officer in front of her. "We go home today."

With that she screamed as her body changed. She grew taller and wider. She screamed louder as she felt her bones and flesh shape and move around until it all came to a stop and in her place was a six foot six inch Krogan. The Krogan was a strange shade of off white and its huge eyes were pale violet.

It roared as it gripped the door and, in a blood rage, tore the door clean off its hinges. The recruits stared dumbstruck at it as it stared back at them with the iron door in hand. It grinned as it hefted the door higher and threw it at them. They didn't move fast enough as it collided with two of them sending them smashing into the wall behind them. They were crushed and slid down the wall with a trail of blood on the wall behind them.

The senior officer rolled away from it and reached up to call for help. But he wasn't fast enough. The Krogan grabbed him by the neck and held him up against the wall. He couldn't breathe and panicked more as the Krogan's other hand came up to his helmet. He slammed his eyes closed as the hand closed around the helmet, not wanting to see his death. When he felt his helmet being taken off he slowly opened his eyes.

The Krogan's eyes widened then it snarled and narrowed is eyes when it saw his face. "You. You took me from my family. You took my life from me."

"No you don't understand," he gasped struggling to breathe, "we were only following orders. We did this to..."

"You did this to turn me into a monster." The Krogan growled, squeezing his throat tighter. "Now I will take your life. It only seems fair." The Krogan grinned as it pulled him away from the wall then slammed his body against it with crushing force. It let him go and his body slid limply down to the floor landing in a bloody pile.

The last guard stood there stunned to the point of paralysis. The Krogan stared at him with menacing eyes and a grin of victory on its face. "Well Bobby looks like it's just you and me. Alone."

Bobby stood there shaking and had a petrified look on his face. The Krogan walked up to him and stood right in front of him. "I wouldn't try anything would I?" with that the Krogan reared back and head butted him with enough force to make him go unconscious.

There was that sound of small whimpers coming from the cell and the Krogan walked in slowly and cautiously. It looked to the direction the sounds were coming from and saw Chris curled into a ball with the blanket over his head. "Chris," the Krogan said as quietly as it could with such a booming voice. "It's alright. They're gone. You're safe now."

Chris looked up at the Krogan with wide scared eyes. "T...Tezra?" The Krogan smiled and nodded and held out a hand for him.

"We're going home today Chris and nobody is going to stop us." Tezra said as Chris took a hold of her huge Krogan hand.

"But I thought you said there was no way to escape?" he asked picking up the blanket and holding onto it.

Tezra chuckled quietly. "I did say that. Well I thought about it last night and well I never tried using their weapon against them."

"So we are going home?" he asked excitedly hope returning to his eyes and spreading over his face.

"Yes we are kid."

Tezra slowly ran with Chris beside her down the halls of the station. Chris had an omnitool on his wrist; they had picked it off the unconscious Bobby and thrown him in one of the other cells with the rest of the dead guards. Chris was leading them through the facility with the maps that were on the omnitool. Tezra was providing protection whenever they ran into some guards, but she was beginning to tire and she wouldn't be able to stay in this form for much longer.

"How much longer till we reach the shuttles?" Tezra asked her exhaustion beginning to show.

"Not much longer, just through two rooms, down some stairs and through a hallway. Then we should be in the shuttle bay." He said taking a look at the map again. "Why?"

"There was another reason the experiments didn't work." She said taking the lead again as she walked on with Chris following behind her. "They wanted me to last forever in whatever form I was in, but I can only stay in these forms for a limited amount of time. I can stay in this form for about two hours before I just become too exhausted and have to change back."

Chris gave her a sympathetic look and continued to follow her. They walked to a door that was unlocked. "This is the first room we need to go through." Chris said looking down at the map. "The other room is connected to this one and the stairs are behind a door in the other room."

Tezra stopped suddenly causing Chris to bump into her. "Tezra?" Chris looked up at her concerned, rubbing his nose from when he walked into her. He saw that she was staring at the door and her hands were shaking.

_She screamed as they injected her with another shot of strange DNA. The purple liquid entered her blood stream and caused her to suddenly convulse on the metal lab table. The scientists quickly grabbed the electrode rod from its holster and shoved it in the incision they had made in her chest above her heart. They turned it on and the electricity danced around her body. She kept screaming until there was no air left in her lungs. She saw the face of the head scientist before her vision was consumed in black and her body went limp._

Tezra gasped and started breathing heavily. She could feel the pain all over again as if she had just been back to that horrible place. Her whole body started to shake and she took a couple of steps back away from the door.

"Tezra?" Chris asked worriedly, taking a few steps away from her. Her violet eyes stayed glued to the door in front of them.

"I can't go back in there Chris." Tezra said, voice shaking. "Not after what they did."

Chris looked confused for a second before he realised that this was the room where they did all those experiments. Lightly putting his hand on Tezra's arm, he looked into her eyes with determination.

"Tezra, I am guessing that this room is the room they did all those experiments on you." Tezra nodded her head, looking into his eyes. "And I'm sure you are scared of going back in there, but we have to go through there to get to the shuttles. To go home. To be with our families."

Tezra thought about what he had just said and he was right. She had to go through there to see her family again, she missed them so much and she wasn't about to make them wait longer. With a determined nod in Chris' direction, she picked up her exhausted body and led the way through the dreaded room.

**Oh my god I am evil. Leaving you guys with a cliff hanger. Sort of.**

**Anyway a double update! Wow! Don't get used to it. It probably won't happen again for a while.**

**So what do you think of Tezra's 'ability'? I had always liked the idea of shape-shifting and I decided to incorporate it into my fanfic. Now she only has three alternative forms and I tried to make her as non-Mary Sue as possible by making it so she could only stay in her alt forms for a limited amount of time. Tell me what you think. And if you can guess what her other alt forms are you get a cookie. One should be pretty simple, the other? Not so much. ( OMG channelling Aria right there XD) **

**Anyway hope you guys enjoyed reading this as much I enjoyed writing it.**

**Love you all,**

**Deathadda22**


	5. Chapter 5

**I would like to thank all of those who have reviewed for the last four chapters. You have all made me very happy and as a reward for your hard earned time in reviewing I present to you another chapter. Also I am very sorry for the extremely long wait.**

Chapter 5

Escape.

Chris and Tezra walked silently through the door to the labs. Tezra, still in her Krogan form, looked around skittishly, taking extreme caution. In her past escape attempts she had never even thought about trying to go through the labs, she wanted to spend the least amount of time there as possible.

Chris minutely tugged on Tezra's hand when she stopped for just a second.

"Come on Tezra." Chris encouraged, "The faster we get through the labs that faster we get to go home to our families."

Chris was right. Tezra needed to do this, she needed to get home. With a determined step forward, she followed Chris through the lab. As they walked toward the door Tezra spotted something in the corner. She walked over to it realising it was a pistol. Picking up the weapon she tested the sights, checked the safety and made sure that the gun wouldn't fire when she had the safety switched on. She walked back over to Chris and waited for him to lead the way.

"Do you even know how to use that?" Chris asked as he gave her a weary look.

Tezra chuckled lightly as they began to walk toward the exit. "They gave me weapons training as well as the ability to shape-shift." Chris eyed the gun once more before walking forward.

Tezra was still looking around the lab, trying not to remember all the things these people had done to her. Walking past all the different machines and equipment they had used on her did bring back some memories, but she pushed them down.

They made it across the lab and were standing in front of the door to the next room. Chris checked the map on his Omni-tool; it showed that the room ahead was smaller than the lab, probably just a waiting room.

They walked across the room cautiously, Tezra trying to stay as far away from the equipment as possible. They made it to the other door and it opened when it sensed their presence. On the other side was a fairly empty room. It had a desk off to the right of them connected to the wall. On the desk was a standard terminal and a few data pads. There were three drawers underneath the desk on the left hand side. To the left of the room was a set of chairs bolted into the wall and a small coffee table just in front of them.

Both walked over to the desk and Tezra started to rummage through the drawers. In the top drawer was a pile of papers and data pads with a few pens. In the second drawer were just some pre-packaged foods that Tezra grabbed, thinking they could have them later and the fact that she would need an energy boost soon. The third drawer was just full of files, so nothing really useful.

Chris nudged Tezra with his elbow and started toward the stairs at the end of the room. Tezra quickly caught up with him and gently pushed him behind her.

"Wouldn't want you to get caught if there are guards behind the door." She explained and glanced down at Chris as he gave her an understanding nod.

Tezra opened the door with herself in front of Chris. And as she had said there were a small group of six guards waiting for them. She quickly pushed Chris behind the wall next to the door for cover as the guards started shooting at them. Tezra quickly moved back for cover as well. She peeked around the corner, assessing the situation. The guards were all funnelled at the bottom of the stairs having very little cover compared to the cover that Chris and Tezra had. She shot off a few rounds, either getting body shots or missing completely.

Suddenly the alarms were screaming and there was a man yelling over the intercom.

"Intruders in D-Wing! Get them out! Forget about subjects 13 and 14, just get rid of those intruders!"

Tezra sighted down the scope of the pistol again, trying to aim for the head of one of the guards, but her vision became blurry and her arm had started to shake, her exhaustion was wearing her thin and she could not stay in this form for much longer. She stepped behind the cover of the door again, taking a deep breath as her whole body began to shake.

A muffled boom came from down the stair well. The guards at the end of the hall turned to go back through the door at their end only for it to be blown open by an explosion on the other side. The door flew out of its frame and crushed three of the guards beneath it, the other three only had a second before they were shot by someone through the smoke in the doorway.

Tezra collapsed onto her knees as her body slowly changed back to her normal human form. She was panting, sweat drenched her form and her whole body was shaking violently, Chris rushed across the doorway to help her as she fell to her side and struggled to breathe.

"Tezra calm down and take deep breaths." Chris told her firmly, but the fear in his eyes betrayed his bravado. "You need to breathe."

Chris turned his head at the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs and grabbed the pistol that was loosely sitting in Tezra's hand. He aimed the gun toward the doorway and stood in front of Tezra, ready to protect her while she was down.

The footsteps stopped just before the door. Chris held his breath. Tezra was still gasping for air and violently shaking. Tezra reached out with a shaking hand and grabbed Chris' ankle. Chris turned around and looked at her questioningly, she shook her head, "It's over." Her voice was barely above a whisper.

A figure stepped around the doorway just as Chris lowered his gun arm. Chris caught the movement out of his peripheral vision and aimed the gun at the person in the doorway. The person raised his rifle watching Chris carefully. Chris watched the Turian in front of him intently, keeping his gun raised at the man.

The Turian looked past Chris and saw Tezra on the floor, shaking and barely breathing, covered in sweat, before he looked back at Chris and slowly lowered his rifle. "I'm not going to hurt you kid. Just put down the gun."

Chris shook his head, "No. Who are you? What do you want with us?"

"Easy kid. I want to help you. Your friend is in a bad way and I need to get her to my ship to take her to a hospital."

"Who are you?" Chris took a step back.

"My name is Nihlus Kryik. I'm a Council Spectre." Tezra snapped her head to look up at him.

"Ni'?" was all she said before her vision faded to black.


End file.
